EOS, Tezos, XRP: a majority of “worthless” transactions?

The blockchain trilemma is between security, decentralization and scalability of their network. Some such as EOS, Tezos and XRP have relied heavily on scalability to display good transaction speeds, but the latter seem quite meaningless. Explanations.

Scalability: a strong point still not very useful?

A recent study , on highly scalable blockchains , has just been published by researchers from Imperial College London and the Center for Blockchain Technologies at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

The study focused on 3 months of observation of transactions on the EOS , Tezos (XTZ) and XRP blockchains , from October 1, 2019 to January 1, 2020 more precisely.

And the picture is not good to see: despite the high transaction rates announced by the EOS , Tezos (XTZ) and XRP blockchains , a large part of on-chain transactions "do not give rise to a transfer of real value" , according to the report.

Already, researchers note that the capacity of transactions per second (TPS) of these blockchains was only little used  during their study. It is on the order of:

• 20 TPS for EOS;
• only 0.08 GST for Tezos;
• 19 TPS for XRP.

For comparison, Bitcoin which is not famous for its scalability, is solicited around an average of 5 TPS according to Blockchain.com , not enough to blush therefore.

Only a few percent of “useful” transactions?

EOS: 95% of transactions from the EIDOS scam

Transaction throughput and breakdown by transaction type on EOS, Tezos and XRP - Source: arxiv.org

Regarding EOS , analysts have found that before the arrival of the token EIDOS, about 50% of the transactions were from games of chance ( gambling ). But after the launch of the EIDOS token , and the massive airdrop of this token with no real value in early November 2019, 95% of EOS transactions were devoted to this one token!

Tezos: only 18% of non-governance transactions

For Tezos , it is rather an absence of solicitation which indicates. Indeed, a vast majority of transactions simply come to its governance system by staking (or " baking " on Tezos). Thus, 82% of Tezos blockchain transactions only serve to maintain its consensus. We cannot say here that it is “useless”, but that would mean that there are few “real” transactions, resulting from applications.

XRP: only 2% of transactions with a value?

For the distributed register of XRP tokens from Ripple, the problem would come from the impressive number of creations and payments of tokens without values over the observed period. “ OfferCreate ” and “ Payment ” transactions represent 50% and 46% respectively, and only 2% of the transactions observed would involve transfers of real value . The researchers also note that about 10% of the transactions failed during this period.

If scalability problems arise strongly on blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is because they are in high demand by their user community. It is therefore a paradox to note that blockchains, which conversely can accommodate a lot of operations per second, are ultimately little used by truly “useful” transactions.